


The Cave

by AsagiStilinski



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Creepy, Established Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Established Relationship, Illusions, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Monsters, Psychic Abilities, Summer Vacation, Vacation, Visions, lake monster, sblake, sterekbingo2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-07 07:32:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18868630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsagiStilinski/pseuds/AsagiStilinski
Summary: To celebrate their first summer together after highschool, the pack decide to spend a week together at Lydia's lake houseToo bad whatever lives in that lake has other plans





	The Cave

**Author's Note:**

> For Sterek Bingo's theme "The Lake"

"FINALLY!!!"

"Yesss!!!"

"Man I am SO glad you guys decided not to sell this place!"

Lydia's expression was rather non-plussed, clearly unimpressed as the majority of the pack zoomed past her into the lake house

"Yeah, well, that was less of a 'decision' and more of a byproduct of you heathens destroying the place the last time we were here, but whatever,"

"Oh come on Lyds, we didn't destroy anything, and you know damn good and well that you would have kept the house anyway once your aunt Amy died and gave your mom that big inheritance, so don't pretend it's on us,"

Lydia rolled her eyes as they stepped in, her expression vacant and tired as they watched Liam and Malia fight over the TV

"I've got dibs on netflix!"

"What!? That isn't fair!"

"It _is_ fair, I want to finish watching Killing Eve," Malia insisted, grabbing the remote

"And I want to finish watching- ... the.. show I was watching!"

"It's ok Liam, you can say 'Yuri On Ice'," Mason chuckled as he stepped behind the couch, grabbing the remote suddenly- or atleast trying to, before Malia snatched it away

"Dude, shut up..." Liam winced, hanging his head in clear embarrassment

"Oh come on man, it's 2019, there's no shame in watching a gay skating anime,"

"I never said I was _ashamed_ ," Liam protested in annoyance

The jabbering seemed to just... go on and on... endlessly so, and Lydia was getting progressively exhausted just by witnessing it

She was a little relieved by the time Parrish came up behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist

Finally another adult on the horizon...

"I want your sworn oath that we wait atleast five or six years before we infect this place with kids of our own,"

"You've got it," the deputy chuckled lightly, his expression warm and amused as he leaned down to kiss his girlfreind's cheek

"Five or six years? Wow, what's with the painstaking wait?"

Glancing up, Lydia found herself face to face with Stiles once again- though this time he wasn't alone

"Just because the two of you like to rush into everything-"

"Hey, we are not _rushing_ , ok? Just because we aren't waiting until we're in our forties, that doesn't mean we're 'rushing',"

"... I don't even know what to say to that," Lydia mused with a roll of her eyes

She wanted to correct him on the fact that she would still be in her twenties in five or six years but it seemed useless, Stiles was obviously exaggerating and all she could do was live with it

Apparently

"Well when are you two planning on having your's?" Parrish asked with mild surprise

Stiles wasn't even twenty-one yet, hell he was _barely_ twenty, and Jordan himself was already twenty-six, he had a hard time processing the idea that someone so young was ready for kids

"SOON,"

"Not _too_ soon, we haven't even gotten married yet," Derek corrected gently, apparently trying to calm the ... _eagerness_.... of his fiance'

"But soon enough," he added a second later, probably feeling the stare that Stiles was practically drilling into him at this point

"You two are cute," Parrish noted with a chuckle, ignoring the playfull groan that Lydia gave

"When do we go to the lake?" Malia asked suddenly, evidently done with whatever she had been doing and now leaning over the back of the couch, looking bored

"Just give us a few minutes to unpack and we'll head out, ok?"

The lake would be nice, they figured

They had all survived their first year of adulthood and this trip to the lake to celebrate their first summer together after highschool would be a nice break from the daily grind

Or... so they thought

 

~+~

 

"Dammit... still nothing,"

Derek jerked his head up, his eyes narrowed as he glared over his shoulder at his boyfreind

"Are you _still_ on that thing? Dammit Stiles, you've checked it twenty times in the last hour!"

"Well I can't help it! I want it to do well and I'm worried!! The pre-sales have been up for seven hours and we've only had a few orders!"

"Stiles... it's only been seven hours, isn't it a month-long sale?" Derek reasoned gently

"But other zines have sold HUNDREDS of copies by now! What if it's a failure? What if it's a flop!?" Stiles screeched, staring at his phone in dismay

"What's going on?"

Glancing up at Kira, Derek gave a quiet sigh in response and leaned back against the lawn chair he was currently sitting in

"Stiles is working on some fan project and it's not going as well as he hoped,"

"Really? What's the project?" Kira asked curiously, moving to sit on the edge of the peir beside the witch

"It's a zine, I'm modding it with these four other people, it's a big project and has gotten alot of interest but now that it's actually time to cough up money I'm afraid that people aren't really going to buy..."

"Is it a month long pre-sale?"

"Yeah,"

"Then don't worry, alot of people are late-bloomers, and even the early ones don't necessarily hit in the first twelve hours, but if you're worried, I've got some modding experience, I helped mod a pretty successfull Harry Potter zine last year, we raised $12,000 for Lumos, plus printing costs,"

"Wow... seriously?" Stiles asked in amazement, earning a happy nod from the kitsune

"Yeah but the sales were a bit of a slow start honestly, they really picked up nearer to the end of the order period, but if you want, I could take a look at the site and see if you can improve anything? What's your project?"

"Oh it's a queer superhero zine to benefit The Trevor Project, we've got everything from SuperCorp to Stucky to non-binary Loki and even non-DC and Marvel stuff, I think there's a Miraculous Ladybug story in there somewhere in fact,"

"Oh that sounds so cool!!! There's no reason for it not to succeed, especially with Endgame having just come out and so many Stucky and Stony fans looking to ease the pain, can I see your phone then?"

"Sure," Stiles agreed, handing the device over to his freind, happy for the help

"Oh... huh, there's no signal..."

"Wait really?"

That was strange, he'd had a signal just a minute ago....

Eyes narrowing and nose wrinkling, he took the phone and stared at it himself

Yep, it was giving the no signal sign

"Ok, gimme a minute, I'm going to go find a signal, I'll be right back,"

Kira nodded, watching as Stiles got up and headed away from the lake house

She wasn't sure why, but she was starting to get a bad feeling about his leaving....

A _really_ bad feeling....

 

~+~

 

"Fuck.... where the hell is my signal!?"

Honestly, of all the asinine problems to have....

He'd had a signal all day, now he finally wanted to show the damn thing to Kira and it blipped off?

That was his luck though

Ofcourse he could have always just magic'd a signal but he was more interested in finding out why his had gone bloop all of a sudden than in trying to create a brand new one

He had already walked ten minutes away from the house and there was nothing

He was just about to turn around and go back, giving up on the idea of finding his lost signal, when he noticed something kind of... odd....

There was a cave up ahead

Weird, he'd never heard of a cave being near the lake...

Narrowing his eyes, he put his phone away for the time being, officially giving up on the idea of getting that signal back and deciding instead to simply investigate the cave

He probably wouldn't find anything, but Stiles always liked exploring weird areas that shouldn't be there, you never know when you could find burried treasure or a dead body after all

He approached the cave quietly, summoning an orb of light to his palm as he went and creeping around the corner, he didn't know what was inside- it could be nothing, or it could be _something_ and that _something_ could be _alive_ so it was really better if he was cautious

He held the light out in front of him, his eyes narrowed and his lips pursed as he stepped in closer

So far the cave seemed empty...

It looked shallow, from what he could tell of the mouth of it, but looks could be deceiving....

He took another few steps in, making sure he didn't stray too far from the entrance of the cave

The last thing he wanted to do was wander in too far and get lost- or trapped..

It was strange....

He could see the back wall of the cave, it didn't look like it was very far away, and yet... he kept walking and walking and couldn't seem to actually get any closer...

His heart was racing now, swallowing anxiously as he moved

Something was wrong here

Something was wrong and he couldn't determine what it was but it was- ... it wasn't right

Suddenly there was a sound above him, like a fluttering noise, and he hurriedly spun around and looked up, staring anxiously at the ceiling as a bat flew away

A bat...

That was even stranger, he had never known bats to live in this area, and it looked like it was only one of them at that...

Ok, something was definitely wrong with this cave

And just as he was determining that, he heard another noise, turning to look over his shoulder and feeling his heart sink at the sight of... _something_ scurrying away towards the back of the cave, going around a corner that he didn't know was even there

Stiles wasn't stupid, and he had lost his impulsiveness- well, most of it, anyway- a wile ago, he knew better than to try to investigate this on his own

So, with his mind made up, he headed out of the cave, and resolved to go get Derek and the others

 

~+~

 

"Great, some 'vacation',"

Stiles rolled his eyes, resisting the urge to bite Malia's head off for that comment- figuratively speaking, ofcourse

"Well jeez, sorry that I'm preoccupied by being concerned with the fucking MYSTERY CAVE right behind Lydia's lake house!"

"Actually it's more of a fifteen minute walk away from my lake house so I'm not all that concerned," Lydia noted flippantly as they walked

Stiles wanted to tell her that she wasn't helping, but really, what was the point?

"Are we getting close Stiles?" Scott asked with a frown, clearly not enjoying the impromptu hike

"Close enough," Stiles grumbled ack under his breath

That was just the thing though

They were close enough that they should have been able to see it by now, atleast an outline of it, but to his shock and fright, there was nothing

There was no sign at all of it

Nothing that even remotely RESEMBLED a cave or a cavern or anything that looked like the place he had just bee to....

"I don't get it..." Stiles muttered, taking a step closer, clearly deflated

"It... it was right here.... I was right here!! I know it was! This... I didn't imagine it!"

"No one is saying that you did," Derek promised quickly, placing a hand on his back

"Really? You sure about that?" Stiles grumbled back

"Positive," Derek insisted, grabbing his boyfreind's shoulder and giving it a tight squeeze

"C'mon, I'm sure you just got a little confused about where you saw the cave, let's keep looking, ok?"

Stiles nodded, but he didn't believe Derek

He didn't believe him at all

 

~+~

 

They never did find that cave

The group had spent two hours looking and hadn't found anything even close to resembling it and that was ... _frustrating_

Stiles knew he wasn't crazy, he knew he wasn't just imagining the cave

It had been there, he had seen it, he had seen _something_ inside it

He just didn't know what

He hated this sensation, like he was going crazy

He hated feeling like he had lost his mind

He had felt like that enough already in his life and he didn't need to keep feeling that way

His entire day was obsessed with that damn cave, and he couldn't sleep that night

So he decided to put an end to it, once and for all

He'd take his camera with him and film it

He slid out of bed quietly, causing Derek to stir beside him, mumbling his name out quietly under his breath

"Shh, it's ok Der, I'm just going to the bathroom,"

It was a lie, but Derek wouldn't be able to hear that in his voice with the sleep clogging his mind

Instead, Stiles only kissed him on the head, grabbed his phone and put his shoes on, and headed out of the room, then out of the lake house

He was going to find that cave, come hell or high water

 

~+~

 

Unbelievably- or, perfectly because, never forget, this was Stiles' life and Stiles' life was just _Like This_ \- the cave was exactly where it had been before

It hadn't moved, it hadn't changed, there was nothing hiding it or obscuring it now

It simply... _was_

Swallowing tightly, he snapped a few pictures of the thing and immediately e-mailed them to Derek, just in case something happened to his phone, or he get back to the lake house and suddenly the pictures were gone or something stupid like that

It was as safe as he could get, considering he couldn't exactly print them out on the spot, so if something was going to fuck with him- fuck with _this_ \- he wouldn't have any options left besides simply taking it

He swallowed tightly and began plan B- he was going to call Derek (hell, he was going to call _everyone_ ) and sit here and watch the cave until they came out and had proof of their own

It would be hard for the damn thing to totally disappear if he was watching it the entire time

So he sat down in front of it and immediately summoned up a signal with magic, just like he had unknowingly done a few years back in Mexico

So far so good

Now he just had to wait on his boyfreind to pick up

Wait....

Wait......

Wait...........

"Derek!!"

_"Stiles...? Where-?"_

"It's the cave, it's back, you've gotta come out here, please, hurry!"

_"... I'll be there soon,"_

 

~+~

 

For five minutes, he sat there and watched the cave, half expecting it to vanish somehow, half expecting to fall asleep staring at it

In the end, neither of those were what really happened

Yes, he did start feeling sleepy again at some point, a few minutes in, but he held his ground firmly, he refused to give in, he wasn't going to let this thing get away from him this time

He did everything he could to keep from dozing off, even if only for a moment or two, he knew that was all it would take before the thing could disappear again

And that was the last thing he wanted

Anyway, it was about five minutes into all of this that things started to take another nosedive

He could hear something going on up ahead, something like twigs crunching, leaves being stepped on, something that promised trouble ahead, but he didn't move

"If you're trying to scare me into leaving, it isn't going to work! I'm not budging from here!!"

Apparently, the cave both heard and understood him, because it wasn't long after that before ... _something_... started moving inside the opening of the cave

Stiles couldn't tell what it was, it looked vaguely humanoid, but also.. not

It wasn't human, he knew that much, but it wasn't some random animal either, it looked liked a clever blend of both, and it was starting to stalk closer to him, still hidden in the shadows of the cave, but close enough now that he could start seeing the outline of features

He still couldn't make out most details but...

It was enough to spark his ... "curiosity" and concern enough for him to finally get up, marching towards the cave, his jaw tense and his face screwed up in anger

Obviously whatever this thing was, it was trying to provoke him, and although Stiles wanted desperately to say it wouldn't work...

He got up suddenly, deciding to beat the creature at it's own game, and rushed ahead, full speed

If that thing was going to taunt him by offering to show it's self then by gods, Stiles was going to beat the thing to it

There was a problem though

As Stiles approached the opening to the cave, where that whatever-it-was currently was, he felt strangely.... wrong

He felt as though his very presence there was a bad omen, like something terrible was about to happen, and he was right in the center of it

He swallowed tightly, reaching out to the cave opening as though he were trying to touch some wild animal, and as he did so, his fingertips brushed against the open air, but it didn't _feel_ like air

In fact, it felt much more like he was touching _water_

And all of a sudden, he was no longer near the cave

Now he was underwater in the lake

He wasn't sure how he knew it was the lake, he just..... did

Just like he wasn't sure how he was underwater without needing to hold his breath or tread water

Whatever this was, it was some sort of magical intervention

He felt .. off

He felt _wrong_

He felt like there was something dark here

Something dark and ancient and powerfull that he really, _really_ didn't want to fuck with

He could feel it all around him, surrounding him, like some sort of poison polluting the water

He couldn't describe it, he couldn't put it into words, not the sensation, nor the thing it's self

The best he could think of was "eldritch horror", you know, like those Lovecraftian things or the monster from IT

It was just so evil... so dark.... that he felt almost suffocated by it, and-

_"STILES!?"_

Gasping, Stiles blinked, spinning around to look at Derek and the others

"Derek...? When... when did you get here? When did _I_ get here....?"

"What are you talking about? We walked up just a minute ago and you were.... asleep, I think," Scott provided

"More like... in a trance," Derek corrected slowly

A trance.... that made sense....

He turned around suddenly, remembering the cave, and found with frustration that once more, it wasn't there

"You got the pictures though, right? Of the cave? I sent you pictures..."

"Stiles... there are no pictures of any cave," Derek said slowly

"What...?"

"The pictures you sent me are of the land here, but... as it looks now, that's it, there was no cave Stiles,"

Damn...

Dammit!!

"We need to leave," Stiles concluded suddenly, much to everyone's shock

"Excuse me? No way, we didn't come all the way out here-!"

"Malia," Stiles interrupted

"I said we need to leave- NOW, and this isn't a joke,"

"Do you want to tell us what this is all about?" Derek asked quietly

It wasn't judgemental or demanding, not condescending or sarcastic, it was just genuine, full of honest care and love and concern

"I... I can't put it into words, I just know that we need to get out of here, there's something not right, and it's only getting worse,"

"So you feel it too?" Lydia asked suddenly

"Ever since you mentioned coming back here, that you've been back?" she guessed

"Yeah, more or less,"

"Me too.... at first I thought it was residual energy, left over from that... incident, a few years ago with the deadpool and the benefactor, but it isn't, this is new, or- .. or old, very... very old,"

"Ancient," Stiles noted, bringing Lydia to nod quickly in agreement

"Ancient, powerfull, and dark," she added

"I don't know how else to explain it, but it's there in the lake, and I think all of this has just been it's way of trying to warn us, you know... before it's too late?"

Everyone was quiet for a moment, before Derek finally spoke up

"Everyone go inside and pack, I'll get us hotel rooms for the night,"

Quietly, with only little argument, the group began to disperse, heading back to the lake house until it was just Stiles and Derek standing in the clearing, facing eachother in silence

"Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine, as soon as I get away from here," Stiles promised, shifting anxiously and stepping forward, eagerly leaning into Derek's touch as the werewolf put his arm around him

"Running away... that's unusual for you to suggest," he noted as they began walking

"Trust me Derek, this thing is not something we want to mess with,"

"How do you know?"

"Trust me, Derek," he said quietly, a slight red tint flashing breifly in his eyes, wich went unnoticed by his boyfreind as they walked back to the lake house

"I just know,"


End file.
